The restaurant opens tomorrow, and I want to run away tonight

Dear Delyara, Tomorrow morning, I unlock the doors of the restaurant I spent fifteen years dreaming about. The tables are set. Staff are trained. Reservations are full for opening weekend. My parents invested their savings. My wife left a stable job to manage accounts. Everyone keeps telling me I should be excited. I am sitting on the kitchen floor at two in the morning considering driving until the city disappears behind me. I can suddenly imagine every possible failure in precise detail: undercooked chicken, empty tables after the opening curiosity fades, staff wages unpaid, my father pretending the lost savings do not matter. When the restaurant was only a dream, it could remain perfect. Tomorrow, strangers get to taste it, review it, reject it, and decide whether my family made a mistake believing in me. I have cooked professionally for twenty-two years. None of that confidence followed me into ownership. My chef’s jacket is hanging on the office door with my name embroidered over the heart. Tonight, it looks less like a uniform than a label on someone I am not sure I can become by morning.